The Many Churches of Enhancement

Throughout history religions formed around prophetic doctrines and absorbed people to exercise the prayer and practice of those faiths.  The older a religion is, the more influential it is over the cultural identity of a people who adhere to its tenants that may have adapted over time to address the changes of the world.  Many religious groups have disappeared because their practice challenged the leadership, base religion, or philosophy of the times when they were in active practice.  We know that most of the United States founders sought to practice religion without persecution and hence incorporated that freedom and tolerance into the laws of the new nation.

Popular interest now has unified many cannabis cultural practitioners with a doctrine, leadership, ceremony, means of communion, and even its own holiest day (April 20).  Thusly, various cannabis religious sects have sprung to embrace the ideas of cannabis as a group of individuals who share an idea of divine fellowship.  It helps that bona-fide religious groups operated tax-exempt in most cases (for property and finances).  This has been done in the past with all sorts of things like Bar-Churches that serve alcohol as part of religious ceremony (most often in dry-counties of different states) and hold services 6 or 7 days a week, and Spiritual Quest Churches that serve Peyote or other known hallucinogens to produce a vision.  If you name a niche of people who have similar beliefs, there is a ripe foundation for establishing the foundation of a religious order or branch.

The United States Constitution’s first amendment promotes the right to congregate and the free exercise of religious beliefs, providing that the practice of those beliefs operate in union within the framework of established laws.   This means that an individual’s beliefs in any form of religious sect may not be forcefully converted or stand as the sole cause of any charge, but the practice of the religion must adhere to the Federal and State laws.   Most famously the Church of Latter Day Saints lost the right in court to practice polygamy.  Not as famously mentioned is the movement of the Jewish practice of circumcision from the privacy of home, family, and Rabbi to the sterility of the hospital with immediate family and Rabbi.

Vampirism, perhaps spurred by books and film, is a practiced belief that energies of an individual (symbolically blood) can transfer energy to another and assist in sustaining or adding to the complexity one’s life force.  That being said, it does not encourage or condone non-voluntary participation.  Wiccan, Druid, Ancient Aztec or Mayan, or hundreds of other cultural practices that exacted human sacrifice might also be unearthed and brought to symbolic ritual but they would be quashed if their practices did include killing someone.  Animal sacrifice is still practiced by several religious groups (don’t tell PETA) but in most cases the animals are raised specifically for the ceremonial purpose; the same life-ending process is performed daily with the automated execution of millions of animals but it is performed to fulfill the community need of eating.

Persecution comes hand-in-hand with practice of any belief structure not considered mainstream; that happens when the righteous practice of one base belief system is bullied or challenged by a more righteous belief system.  One of the arguments of Steve Berke (founder of the International Church of Cannabis) is that the Cannabis religion practitioners, who are referred to as “elevationists,” are targeted by infiltrators who stage the busts and-or court charges against the private use clauses of State legislation.  The religious services and practices of the congregation are technically gate crashed by undercover investigators to dissuade the participants.   Does anyone gate crash a Catholic First Communion celebration to determine whether wine is truly being served to minors?  Do “wedding crashers” report under-age drinking or a pod of puffing adults outside at private receptions? Tolerance of others habits or idiosyncrasies of another’s traditions of celebration are generally accepted.  The movement toward cannabis worshippers’ Elevationism beliefs are in fact undue persecution through the lens of what is NOT done elsewhere.

All things new or “new-to-you” are subject to scrutiny by a public that by design gravitates to others who share their beliefs.  The church phase of cannabis believers has a long way to go to reach recognition and will not likely be able to stake itself anywhere in a state without legal cannabis licensing.  As a religion, it remains to be seen whether the qualifications for Elevationism will be fully met in the sense of traditional religion, but Tweets, Facebook Posts, and Google Search results have fueled the breaking of many concept traditions … so why not religion too?